HOSTAGE SITUATION BEST PRACTICES • FACEAPP • TRUE COSTS OF IMMIGRATION ON TAX PAYERS
Journal for Law Enforcement, Intelligence & Special Operations Professionals
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019
VOLUME 12 • NUMBER 5
2 WEEKS – 24 HOURS
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Counter CONTENTS
The Journal for Law Enforcement, Intelligence & Special Operations Professionals
6
22
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 VOLUME 12 • NUMBER 5
COVER STORY:
6
2 WEEKS – 24 HOURS by Garret Machine
FEATURES: 14
HOSTAGE NEGOTIATIONS by Orlando Wilson
FACEAPP 22 by Greg Stuart 26
THE COST OF PERMANENT PATIENTS by Neal Asbury
DEPARTMENTS: 04
From the Editor
32
Course Review
Our Society
Active Threat Response/Best Practices
Cover Photo:
Israel Defense Forces
26
The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2019 3
Our Society
by Garret Machine
Journal for Law Enforcement, Intelligence & Special Operations Professionals
O
ur society, our culture, and our nation have proved to be superior to others when it comes to quality of life and standard of living. If you were born in the United States to American parents then the odds are you subscribe to western values and all they have to offer. Life, liberty, and capitalism are those very values in priority order. With the only functioning constitution and a strong capitalistic value system, we have a standard all our own. Travel to Europe to other “first world countries” and see to your surprise that key characteristics, things that Americans take for granted as normal, are absent: central A/C, disposable cars, unlimited hot water, return policies, $6 for a cup of coffee, and $2 for a gallon of gasoline. You need gas, so it is cheap; you want coffee, so it is expensive… While tourists joke that we do not travel or know other languages, I am quick to remind them that they would burn their passport in exchange for a green card and secretly wish they had the command of the nation’s language like a natural-born citizen. Further, American English has become the standard above all other international dialects. It is true. So how did we get here? Why is it that there is simply no other country that can match our exceptionalism? Well to me the answer is evident: It was people who shared a common culture and had a common vision that wrote our founding documents, staffed our governments, and made the decisions that steered our great nation’s path through the 18th century, the 19th century, and the 20th. We enjoy the American life only because of men who took Judeo-Christian values and somehow balanced those with a separation of church and state. Conversely, if you look at predominantly Muslim-populated countries, religion is almost always comingled with politics. You can decide if that is good or bad. Today we have become so decadent, so aloof, so populated, and so diluted that our founding principals are being usurped by subcultures from within. Subcultures that have been empowered by a nation that embraced their differences and created the framework they seek to undermine. Overpopulation of societies within societies has led to fractured nations in many historical instances. To put it bluntly, we have enabled fringe populations within our borders to grow to such an astounding level that actors with interests counter to the very foundations that got us where we are today were able to vote into power their own agents. Some of these agents are national decision makers who believe themselves wiser than those whose decisions, made not that long ago, enabled them to get where they are. Think about what I just said: a person not born to this nation, who has no knowledge of our culture, did not grow up here, was not educated here, and knows absolutely nothing except “what America can do for them,” now is employed in every capacity from a police officer in Miami to a decision maker at the federal level. How can this be? Is this right? Would the lesser lands they escaped enable the same? Watch American TV shows from the early 1960s to mid 80s and you will get a glimpse of a nation in its prime, though vastly different from how we live today. To further exacerbate the point, try this experiment like I did. Walk down the street in any town in the USA holding a large American flag on a pole. People will react to you randomly by yelling things from their cars; almost all comments will be political. When did patriotism or the national flag become a partisan topic? When did Boy Scouts stop being boys? What have we done? People who immigrate seek to escape a lesser land in search of a greater land. Meaning they want to leave whatever society they are from and seek to enjoy ours. But then low and behold, only when they grow in numbers do they wish to change our society to accept the very cultures they sought to escape. There is no reversing these things, each incident signals a pivotal decline in our place as number one and the world’s leader in… well, everything. If you are over 40, you witnessed the beginning of the dilution; your children will live the downfall. That is if you agreed with the premise that we are unique among nations as the greatest that ever was. You would then agree we should maintain those values and cultural norms that set the foundation for a nation that is the greatest of all time. Garret Machine Editor, The Counter Terrorist 4 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2019
Counter The
FROM THE EDITOR:
VOLUME 12 • NUMBER 5
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019 Editor Garret Machine Director of Operations Carmen Arnaes Director of Advertizing Sol Bradman Administrative Jennifer Junatas Contributing Editors Garret Machine Orlando Wilson Neal Asbury Greg Stuart Graphic Design Morrison Creative Company Copy Editor Laura Town Advertising Sales Sol Bradman bradman@homelandsecurityssi.com 305-302-2790 Publisher: Security Solutions International 3479 NE 163 St. • STE 127 N Miami Beach, FL 33160
ISSN 1941-8639 The Counter Terrorist Magazine, Journal for Law Enforcement, Intelligence & Special Operations Professionals is published by Security Solutions International LLC, as a service to the nation’s First Responders and Homeland Security Professionals with the aim of deepening understanding of issues related to Terrorism. No part of the publication can be reproduced without permission from the publisher. The opinions expressed herein are the opinions of the authors represented and not necessarily the opinions of the publisher. Please direct all Editorial correspondence related to the magazine to: Security Solutions International SSI, 13155 SW 134th Street, Suite 103, Miami, Florida. 33186 or info@thecounterterroristmag.com The subscription price for 6 eZine issues of the magazine is $19.99. (1-866-573-3999) Fax: 1-786-573-2090. For article reprints, e-prints, posters and plaques please contact: Security Solutions International at villegas@homelandsecurityssi.com or call 786-573-3999 Please visit the magazine web site where you can also contact the editorial staff:
www.thecounterterrroristmag.com © 2019 Security Solutions International
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2 WEEKS – 24 HOURS By Garret Machine
“Pressure Makes Diamonds” ~General Patton
Israel Defense Forces from Israel [CC BY 2.0 (https-//creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]
6 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2019
I
t is Sunday, November 4, 2007. The Duvdevan unit is given a mission with 13 targets to be arrested and two weeks to complete. Normally our missions come in about two days beforehand, and we spend about 24 hours in preparation. Sometimes we have two days, sometimes 12 hours, and sometimes it is immediate. This is not a mission that we typically do, but our presence is requested from
the general of Judea and Samaria (West Bank), also known as central command, for our urban operations expertise. In most circumstances, our missions come from the Department of Defense, also known as Shin Bet Security Forces. The Department of Defense uses us as the means to their ends—the muscle, if you will. The 13 targets all live in close proximity to one another, relatively speaking. This
The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2019 7
mission, unlike most, is to be a joint operation with two reconnaissance companies that are also known as “PALSAR.” The border patrol will assist in sealing off the outer perimeter of the area that we will be working in. A bomb squad and a K-9 unit for bomb and booby trap detection (got to love those dogs) will assist us; they come on most missions but not all. This is not a mission favored by most of the men in the unit. The units involved convene in an army base on the eve of what feels like impending destruction for our enemies infrastructure and leadership. The base is located in an area close to our target, but not so close as to be detected by heavy movement in the area; we are within about a 30-minute drive time of the working area. We all unpack our gear; we meticulously prepare, check,
and recheck our equipment; and we await our orders on a large basketball court in the middle of the base. The other units prepare in other locations on the same base. Imagine the scene on the basketball court three hours after our initial arrival on the base: some people are playing cards, some are eating small snacks like fruits and nuts, some are studying maps, some are on the phone with loved ones, and some just rest on the floor of the court while the officers plan and finalize our movements. When we first arrive, we all check our gear and then the kitchen staff prepares a small snack just before we get ready to move out. The time spent in the staging area could be 30 minutes or four hours. One never knows when it’s time to move out until the moment before. So we wait; we wait for the best moment
8 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2019
to strike—when it is dark, quiet, and least expected. The men start to mellow out and do activities to take their mind off what is at hand. But even so, we are a veteran group of operators with enough experience as to not be easily shaken by routine search-and-arrest missions. The simplicity of the mission relaxes some but frustrates others because of the thought that we might be in the field for two weeks straight, which of course comes as a disappointment. It is common knowledge amongst us that the best missions are in broad daylight: fast, violent, aggressive, with the highest possible level of intensity. It is not a sexy mission but still has its place in our mandate. Then a point comes when our mission window is reduced from two weeks to 24 hours. This comes
from the regional commander, due to political peace efforts and the U.S. Secretary of State being in the area. In addition, approximately 300 Palestinian Authority (PA) so-called police force (which we call “shopim”) have just been armed with AK-47s. This recent armament has been sanctioned by the UN and approved by the IDF. The idea is that the local PA police can assist us with local terror suppression in the region and control civil unrest and rioting. The police have recently been under-armed when compared to Hamas militants and Fata fighters. This is big news, and good to know considering that it is not unheard of for an AK-armed PA cop to attempt to engage the army (IDF) mid-operation, this is referred to a “blue on green”. This is one of the problems with Third
World police being armed and given authority to patrol the streets. Their training, selection, and requirements are almost nonexistent. This, even after United States Security Coordinator, Lieutenant General Dayton, had implemented training and selection programs for them. If an Al-Queda soldier so desires, he can show up at the local city hall in Ramallah with his ID, dressed as a civilian, and be commissioned as a cop and issued an AK-47 and a uniform within a week. We are told that the police will not intervene and will remain in the police station for the duration of the mission. Our normal firing orders are not to react to uniformed armed police unless engaged first. It is difficult to try to accomplish our mission in exact safe coordination with the other units, each of which is organized to
operate independently. One of the greatest fears in multi-unit operations is friendly fire. Don’t forget, all this will go down mostly during the night. A barrel peeking around a corner in a shadow could be your brother in arms, or a so-called cop, or your target readying your approach. But I have faith in the battle plan, faith in the leadership, and confidence in the other units that we are working with. Most importantly, I know we all are equally committed to the mission and its objectives. As I typically explain in my teachings, if you are afraid of impending enemy contact with an adversary who has the will to die while you have the will to live, then you will be sharp; if you are frightened by sudden sound or sight, then you will be caught off guard. Be afraid, but only so as not to be frightened and
Israel Defense Forces from Israel [CC BY 2.0 (https-//creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)] The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2019 9
We have to plan for the worst, that's what counter-terror warfare is: combating bloodthirsty men who believe they are on a divine destructive path that will stop only at death. control the reaction sequence so as to make the enemy react to you. Our unit is an arrogant one; and rightfully so—we have a very high success rate in comparison to other SOF units. Our rate of capture is something like 200 armed terrorists per year. So what happens next comes as no surprise. By about 21:00, our 24-hour window is starting to dwindle. I am sitting by my gear talking with a friend about the last
mission we did. I hate taking on extra weight, so I almost never bring water with me in the winter. Usually I make sure to drink before the mission until I my urine is clear. I am on my third cup of hot tea. Our second in command, who is heading up this operation, makes the call. We will go in solo, without the recon units, and capture the seven people who live closest together. This is a split-second move when time and nightfall are
critical for mission success. We will be a small group compared to the original operational force. We will be about 30 men inside enemy controlled territory or a non-permissive environment as it is often referred to, but the smaller size gives us the necessary stealth that a large group cannot maintain. We will be underpowered if a large-scale firefight breaks out with the local factions, but we will be quick and not allow time to react to our presence. We will have the elements of surprise and flexibility, which are things the larger force cannot bring and then maintain. We will have another 30 or so men from our unit waiting just outside the city in case there is an extraction problem for us. Basically, what this means is that we are providing our
Israel Defense Forces from Israel [CC BY 2.0 (https-//creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]&_Samaria_(14238722380)
10 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2019
own rescue or QRF. In the meantime, the two recon companies will secure their targets after we have been inside and established control over key structures. Projected time for them to enter is 3:00 am, and by then we should be on the other side of the 500-meter × 500-meter block of housing, known as one of the refugee camps. I urinate for the last time and don all my gear, vest, pack, helmet, and weapons. I do a final check on my MK18 and electronics. And we mount the green bulletproof vehicle that we will call safety for the next 30 minutes of travel. We move in, small in number but ready. We enter the city in what is best described as a heavily armored Brink’s truck. We get the standard armored truck from the International Trucking Company and outfit it with even heaver protection, along with painting it IDF OD green. In Israel, you can see them everywhere in the West Bank if you know where to look. The first thing we do as soon as we get out of the truck is break into a clothing store. We secure the entrance and search the shop, and it is in this tiny shack that we take out a city map and decide whom our first target will be, based on his location. We find his address on the map. We then issue positioning to each man around his house to thwart escape. Each man knows how he must get to his position in relation to our current location and the subject’s house. Each man is also given a smaller mission to complete at his location, such as securing the alley, searching a specific house nearby for a possible place to retreat to, or breaching the door. We learn the map
and route in a minute, and just like that we are off and out the door. I’m sprinting down a dark and dirty street that is not wide enough for a car to pass. It is raining hard, I have 25 kilos of gear on me, and a shot can come from any window or rooftop as I run. I am the team medic, but I am assisting with breaching on house number one. The run itself with the weight is not a challenge, as this is what I am trained for; it is the grueling set of circumstances that makes it stressful. There is no time to cover every angle. Slow surgical movement is deemed ineffective for this. Speed and shock are the essence of our raid. I move fast and quietly, hoping to go undetected to my objective. I need to glance at the floor so as not to trip on the uneven, wet surface. I need to keep an eye on the other men whom I’m running with, so as to stay always aware. I also need to have my weapon at the ready to fire on a gunman, who could emerge from any angle that we have passed or any rooftop we have come under. Within minutes, I find myself blasting through the door of a wanted gunman at 12:00 midnight with my weapon leading as I flow through the doorway with my team covering every angle, every red zone, and accounting for all the living. After bursting into his house, we cover all the rooms and floors quickly and aggressively. Now it is time for the ID and capture; I quickly separate the women and children from the men. I put them in a separate room with watch posted at a CCP. The other men gain control of our HVT. The family of our wanted man acts as if they have been anticipating our arrival; as if they
knew that we would come some day. They move emotionlessly, slowly and with no deliberation. The children don’t speak much, perhaps they are tired or perhaps they are used to this sort of thing. We treat the house’s interior with respect, searching only as far as to ensure our safety. We don't destroy or vandalize; we simply do what we must and nothing more. At that moment I look at the faces of the father, mother, and three smaller boys; they avoid eye contact. We do not need to scream or threaten, as they know we will not hurt them. They know their oldest son of 22 is in our custody, and we kill only if there is a threat to life. Target one is in custody in less than one hour from base departure. Once we have complete and total control of the structure, we radio for the other men waiting outside the house in various hiding positions to come in. We can then plan our next move. The street map is on the table in the kitchen, our route of movement is outlined, threats along the way are pointed out, and potential problems at the subject’s house are discussed. We have to plan for the worst, that's what counter-terror warfare is: combating bloodthirsty men who believe they are on a divine destructive path that will stop only at death. Inevitable how the battle space has migrated to the Western urban sprawl with the uptick in active shooter incidents, disregard for law enforcement authority coupled with a devaluation of human life, an insatiable quest to go viral and one-upmanship. One cannot help point out the correlation with the proliferation of technology, and specifically social media. Sure, there Photo by: Pixabay
The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2019 11
was always violence, but not the way we see it perpetrated today. Meanwhile, our captured man sits in a chair bound and blindfolded. He is motionless. He was aroused from his slumber by masked men in full kit standing over him, weapons poised, aim true, resolve resolute. It is this overwhelming shock and surprise that causes him to surrender peacefully; it is the situation that we so carefully created that causes him to realize our full capability and his impending death if he tries to fight his way out. It is better for him to go through our system of debriefing—and then possibly to be released into his world, only to be captured a year or two later for more information—than to be shot on site for resisting us with violence. It is only then, in the calm moments, that I have time to stop and smell the wretched stench of the house and the city, and to take in the unfamiliarity, the actualization of my presence in a land that is so foreign to my own. This makes me feel positive, productive, out of place, different, distant, yet so deeply intertwined with the global war on terrorism and the political climate. It makes me feel that even though I don’t watch the news or read the newspaper, do not have social media and don’t spend my time on the Internet, I am somehow so much more knowledgeable and able to actually comprehend the culture and way of life of the Arabs, the refugees, the terrorists, and everyone in between. I see how they live, eat, treat each other, and change as they interact with us, each other, and as the situation shifts. Now it is time to move out to house number two on our list.
The difference between fear and fright is timing and anticipation; if I am ready for it, expect and prepare for the fight, then that is fear that I must turn into anger and then aggression.
The next thing I know, I’m outside the house of a barricaded subject four targets later. My breathing is heavy from the last sprint; my clothes are soaked with sweat and rain. My position is quite close to the next target’s front door, in an alley outside the house with two other men. The entry team has determined the best course of action is to call him out with flash-bangs and a megaphone, a call-out to a pressure cooker. One of the men I am with is covering our back and the peripheral area down the alley and to the T-like intersection; the other man is taking responsibility for the door of the house. His barrel is aimed at the house awaiting a potential gun-wielding terrorist to emerge and attempt to kill us with the usual spray-and-pray technique or possibly detonate. We are a tight group, and all of our backs are almost always touching. We have been working together all night. We are tired but don't feel it because the intensity of the environment keeps
12 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2019
us alert. The chemical adrenalin is pumping through our veins at every movement in the distant dark alley. Shots are usually heard at a distance, some firing in the far peripheral area. Unless they are directed toward us, they go ignored because they have become so common. I aim toward the windows and rooftops above us from where we usually receive cinder blocks, bricks, and firebombs. Many a man has fallen in the urban environment due to sniper fire from the peripheral rooftops. This is my position. We have none of our own sniper coverage on this mission. It is standard operating procedure that once we arrive at the final staging location before the mission actually departs, we conduct a full equipment check: weapons, ammo, radio, the whole nine yards. Then when it’s all ready to go we can relax and wait for the green light. So as always, I turn on my radio, put in my earpiece, and speak with someone over the radio. It works fine. But since our last raid, my
radio has somehow died. A dead radio can be fatal in battle. And as Murphy's Law would have it, I only realize this when it is too late. My squad throws a flash-bang grenade at the door to wake up our subject and let him know that we mean business. I do not hear on the radio, "shock grenade," and my position in the alley places me just as close to the grenade as the door that it was intended for. In a closed space the effect of the blast is amplified. The others in my tight group hear the order and in a split second know to expect it, and then to react to the aftermath of the blast expecting the worst. So the grenade goes off and causes that instinctive tightening up of all the body’s muscles and lowering
of the head, raising of the shoulders, and bending of the knees. Imagine me standing, focusing my attention on something, concentrating on the wide-open space above me, waiting for something at any second, and then jolted from an ear-shattering explosion that comes from behind me. It shakes me to the core for a second but then makes me smile and check my radio (only then realizing that it has been busted all along). It is that smile on the face of a soldier after such an incident, it is that reaction and mindset, that keeps him in the game and makes him a disciplined warrior and an effective combatant. The difference between fear and fright is timing and anticipation; if I am
ready for it, expect and prepare for the fight, then that is fear that I must turn into anger and then aggression. Without that anticipation component, we experience fright and shock, which elicits those psychological responses. By daybreak at about 6:00 am, we had acquired seven men by way of sprinting from target to target, only planning a few minutes beforehand in the house of our previous arrest. We used all our grenades that night, quickly moving in the rain to the unknown targets to be dealt with on the spot with whatever we had on our backs. Best job I ever had… •
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HOSTAGE NEGOTIATIONS by Orlando Wilson
14 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2019
Photo by Unsplash
Take nothing at face value and don’t let yourself be emotionally manipulated by the victim’s family. No one is innocent‌
E
veryone working in the emerging markets or dealing with VIP clients should have a basic and realistic understanding of kidnapping and hostage negotiations. A little bit of good knowledge can go a long way in a crisis and could save lives! Kidnapping or hostage negotiations should be left to a professional,
but who qualifies as a professional negotiator is another matter. Every police department will have qualified negotiators, experienced police personnel who have done a one- or two-week negotiation course for dealing with crimes gone wrong, mental illness, and domestic hostage situations, not kidnapping for ransom.
The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2019 15
You need to confirm that the victim has actually been kidnapped and not just decided to go away without telling anyone and has no communications. I personally would want someone with more than two weeks’ training for dealing with psychos and failed Romeos negotiating with professional kidnappers for my release. As with everything, always do your due diligence on who is providing you with the services at the sharp end... The K&R insurance salesman will tell you everything you want to hear to sell you a policy, but when things go bad, is it worth anything more than having someone on the phone who can only offer moral support and textbook guidance? Most federal and government agencies will have highly qualified negotiators; the trouble when dealing with professional kidnappers such as those in Mexico is that they most probably have military and law enforcement people working with them, who have been trained by these government agencies and will know their procedures and tactics. Also, the official stance of most governments is that they will not negotiate with criminals or terrorists and pay ransoms; we will discuss this more in a later article. If you or an associate is kidnapped,
it will be up to the authorities of that country to negotiate your release; your own government will have no legal authority within that country. If it is a high-profile case, your government may allocate someone from your embassy to assist a cooperative local police force; that’s about all you can expect. Forget about Special Forces rescue teams, that’s Hollywood. The attitude of most embassy staff will be that if you had paid attention to the government warnings and stayed away from the country, you would not have been kidnapped in the first place… They won’t be too happy because now they will have to do some work for a change! In countries where kidnapping is common, your case will most likely go to the bottom of the pile. On the commercial market, there are negotiators for hire, and if you need to hire one, make sure they have realworld experience and understand that how things are done in other countries and cultures can vary greatly from the U.S. and Western Europe. I was recently talking with someone from the UK who claimed to have done his master's degree on the spread
16 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2019
and influence of the Mexican drug cartels, which was of interest to me. But I soon learned he did not speak Spanish, had never been to Mexico, and only spoke to U.S. sources for his research. Personally, I found that a common issue, as here, is someone who on paper appears to be an expert on a subject but from my perspective is really just blabbing third-hand facts and figures from one perspective. So, anyone can be given or make a certificate stating that they are a certified hostage negotiator, and the standards of negotiators you can expect to encounter range from excellent to being in league with the kidnappers. As with hiring any security staff, you need to make sure they can be trusted and will work in your interests, not their own or their companies’ interests, which are usually to just run up billing hours to suck money out of you when you are in a vulnerable situation. If you or an associate does not have the money or don’t want to hire an outsider, it could be up to you to deal with the negotiations. Here are some very basic guidelines for a very complex situation: • Confirm, confirm, confirm! You need to confirm that the victim has actually been kidnapped and not just decided to go away without telling anyone and has no communications. A lot of situations that are initially believed to be kidnappings turn out to be false alarms or hoaxes. This where a lot of insurance companies and negotiators start to make money: Rather than waiting to confirm an incident, they feed the clients fear and start billing! • You will need to determine who
has kidnapped the victim – criminals, terrorists – and for what reason. A kidnap-for-ransom case will be dealt with a lot differently from a case of a child being taken by an estranged parent. • Where safe to do so, you will need to investigate the victim’s movements to try to determine when and where they were kidnapped. You will want to try finding any witnesses to the kidnapping that may be able to give you any information about the kidnappers. • If the kidnapping was in public, the police may have been informed, so try to get copies of their incident reports; chances are you will not get any help from local police. If you get any leads, you should inform the local authorities if you believe they are
trustworthy and not working with the kidnappers. • If there are no leads or it’s too dangerous to investigate, you will have to wait to be contacted by the kidnappers. How this will happen will vary greatly, but you will want to try to record or document all communications with the kidnappers because this will help law enforcement with any possible follow-up investigations, especially if the hostage turns up dead. Always cover your ass! • When you communicate with the kidnappers, be firm but polite; remember, this is a business negotiation, and you are buying an asset. • If a ransom has been requested and you intend to pay, you will have to buy time while it is put together and
try to bring the fee down to something realistic. In my experience I have seen ransoms drop from $3,000,000 to $30,000. Make the kidnappers’ demands seem unreasonable, but also indicate that you will do what you can to meet them without making promises. • Whether you pay a ransom or not will depend on what your threat assessment indicates about the kidnappers; do they have a history of releasing hostages after a ransom payment or not. • You will need to establish whether the hostage is still alive before you go any further. If you are dealing with professional kidnappers, they will already have a system for this; usually this takes the form of personal questions and answers. You should try
Photo by: IDF
Photo by Unsplash The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2019 17
to speak to the hostage, but if you’re dealing with professionals, this will not happen, so don’t push it. • If the kidnappers offer a voice recording or video, tell them that you want the hostage to refer to a recent incident or say something you requested them to say. This will ensure the recording was not made before the hostage was killed. These days, forget photos with a recent newspaper, bodies can and have been frozen and brought out for photos. • If you receive any of the hostage’s body parts, you may have problems because this is an indication they may kill the hostage. How you deal with this situation will have to depend on the feeling you get from the kidnappers, but be sure to confirm the hostage is alive at regular intervals. • If you believe that the kidnappers
can be trusted, and you can come up with the ransom money, you will have to make arrangements for picking up and securing the money and the ransom drop-off. This phase can be extremely problematic. • The kidnappers will already have a plan for the ransom drop-off; if you have time, you will need to study the plan in depth and prepare for all eventualities. The ransom drop-off will need to be treated as a highrisk operation because you need to consider that it could be a setup to kidnap or hit you. • After the ransom is paid, hopefully the hostage will be released. If they are not, there is little that you can do about it. If they are released, your follow-up action will depend on where you are and the attitude of the authorities.
18 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2019
Unlike the Hollywood rescue mission, the reality in such situations is that nothing that can be done; in places where the government does not have control, the locals must be very careful.
Hopefully you can see from these very basic guidelines that dealing with kidnappings for ransom can be extremely complicated and is something that cannot be covered in an article. When you were reading through these guidelines, I doubt you were thinking about the emotional state of the victim’s families; how would you feel if a close family member was kidnapped and you had to come up with and drop off a ransom? The chances are that if you advise the family not to pay the ransom because you believe the victim is dead, they will want to pay anyway; this is their choice, but you should always state the facts! One incident we received a call on was where the father of a wealthy family in Central America had been kidnapped, and the kidnappers were
Heide Couch [Public domain]
asking $50k USD for proof of life, which was very strange for that area. I told the family the chances were that the victim was already dead, which I think they knew but were in denial. When I ran the name of the kidnapped person that initially contacted me on social media, it was clear from the photos of their homes, cars in the U.S., and travels that they had money. When I asked about the situation of the family’s security in their own country, I was told there were two cartel SUVs parked at the end of their driveway, meaning that they knew they were under watch‌ Unlike the Hollywood rescue mission, the reality in such situations is that nothing that can be done; in places where the government does not have control, the locals must be very careful. This family had big problems.
The first guideline is to confirm that the kidnapping is an actual kidnapping, not a misunderstanding or a hoax. I was recently approached by a U.S. investigator with reference to a child abduction, and the conversation started as to whether we did high-risk recoveries, etc. The usual Hollywood BS... When I managed to get a word in and asked the investigator who had legal custody of the child, he did not know... So, before confirming the facts of the case he was ready to charge off and illegally snatch, well, kidnap a child from the father who had custody because of accusations from his crazy ex-spouse. The other thing that you need to consider with kidnappings is the reason for the kidnapping, and if you take a case, what other problems you are getting involved with. Often there
The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2019 19
is more to a case than just someone being kidnapped for a ransom; the victim, their family, or associates could have been involved in committing crimes themselves and the kidnapping was a payback from rivals. Take nothing at face value and don’t let yourself be emotionally manipulated by the victim’s family. No one is innocent… Over the years I have been approached by several men who have believed that their girlfriends, who they have usually met online,
have been kidnapped, usually by an ex-gangster boyfriend. In one case, the girlfriend was known to the local police as a prostitute, and had even got the boyfriend, who was madly in love with her, to send her money to buy a house that did not exist, send her nonexistent sister to private school, etc. She had then told this poor guy that she had been kidnapped and needed fifty thousand dollars to be released; he was trying to get the funds together when he called me. She’d never been kidnapped; it was just a scam to get
20 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2019
more money from the guy. Needless to say, the wedding was off, and I hope he stopped trying to meet Russian girlfriends online. If most investigators or security companies are ever contacted to deal with a suspected kidnapping, on thing is going to be on their minds: big money! I consulted for one client who was quoted an exorbitant amount to retain the services of a security company that had apparently rescued an associate of his from a potential Russian mafia threat in Central Asia.
AMISOM Public Information [CC0]
This client had received reports that a close friend of his had been kidnapped, and the first security company he approached in the U.S. were straightaway talking about rescue and extraction operations and had the client very scared for their friend’s safety. We started by getting local assets to confirm that the kidnapping had actually taken place; what we found was an amateur scheme to try an extort money from our client by a third party, no kidnapping. After talking with this client about his associate’s potential Russian mafia threat, we strongly suspect what was in reality a couple of strong words exchanged with some thug was turned into a big payday for the security company he hired. Meaning the thug presented enough of a risk that the company was then hired and employed. By playing on this person’s fears, they blew the incident out of proportion, which was good business for them and gave him something exciting to talk about at his dinner parties. In reality, if a serious Russian mafia group had wanted this guy dead, he would not have made it out of the country he was in or be living carefree and giving dinner parties close to one of the main Russian communities in the U.S.! Another thing you may need to do is investigate what happened, but only when it is clearly safe to do so. I have been contacted numerous times by “investigators” who wanted our assistance in going into locations to investigate kidnappings. On nearly all these occasions, the investigators did not speak the local language, did not know the culture, and would not have blended in with the environments, but wanted to go to the areas where the kidnappings took place and try
to resolve things. I always turn down such requests unless my associates and I are given full control, because we do not want to get involved in potential fiascos that could lead to someone’s death. These investigators’ motives are clearly to make money and add up the billing hours, but they do not comprehend what they are getting into. All they would be doing by going to the kidnapping locations and asking questions would be pressuring the kidnappers, who in return could kill the hostage because they had become too much of a security risk or just kidnap and make the investigator disappear as a warning anyone else who may want to be a hero. I know of one incident on a Caribbean island where a hostage was being told in real time by his kidnappers what his family was telling the police about his kidnapping because the kidnappers were working with the police. There is a big difference between Hollywood and the real world! If you have to deal with a kidnapand-ransom situation, you must remain aware that your personal security takes priority, especially when picking up, moving, and dropping off cash or valuable assets. I know of one incident in the Caribbean in which a woman had twenty thousand dollars sent to her through her bank so that she could pay a ransom for a family member. She picked up the money from her bank and was robbed at gunpoint before she could make it to her car; now she needed to find another twenty thousand dollars for the ransom. Do you think the kidnappers would care that she had been robbed? Not really, they still wanted their ransom money, and chances are they
were in on the robbery. Sometimes not live people are kidnapped but objects, such as ships being seized or dead bodies being stolen for ransom. A good example happened in 2011 at the airport in Mogadishu, Somalia; six men, including two British citizens and one American, were arrested for trying to smuggle in $3.6 million USD to pay for the ransom for two ships. The men were released by a presidential pardon after being fined and sentenced to 10 years in a Somali jail; the ransom money was seized by the Somali government. In Haiti there have been incidents where bodies have been stolen from wakes before funerals with threats that if a ransom was not paid, the body would be mutilated or used for black magic… In a lot of high-risk countries, kidnapping groups will look to employ people who work in banks and can tell them who has cash in their bank accounts to pay ransoms. I know of one case in which a hostage was told by his kidnappers how much money he had in his several bank accounts and what they wanted; he paid. A friend of this person called me a few months after the kidnapping asking my advice, because this man’s secretary had been kidnapped, and the kidnappers had approached him to pay the ransom for her. I told him to tell his friend to tell the kidnappers that if they wanted to kill her it was up to them, it was a lot cheaper for him to find another secretary. Remember, the kidnappers will see it as you paid once, you’ll pay again; in my opinion. It must stop somewhere! •
The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2019 21
FACEAPP Use Social Media? You Are a Soft Target. Use FaceAPP, Consider Yourself a Victim. By Greg Stuart
22 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2019
T
he latest viral sensation to come out of the Internet is undoubtedly FaceApp. Downloaded on a mobile device, FaceApp takes control of your camera, snaps a picture of you, and then proceeds to age you... it is a sensation that I just cannot wrap my
head around. I didn’t think we wanted to see ourselves old and wrinkly, but thanks to a few celebrities, we now need to know what we would look like 50 or 60 years from now. While it sounds fun and like any other viral app such as SnapChat,
The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2019 23
FaceApp poses a privacy concern for everyone that uses it. Although many security polices have begun warning employees of the privacy implications, this happened only after many—including a number of security clearance holders—had already used the app. FaceApp is currently the #1 downloaded app in the Apple App Store and has been downloaded by some 150 million users around the globe. Of those 150 million users, how many have read the fine print terms of use? If you are a user and have not read the terms of use, here they are in not so fine print: You grant FaceApp a perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive, royaltyfree, worldwide, fully-paid, transferable sub-licensable license
to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, publicly perform and display your User Content and any name, username or likeness provided in connection with your User Content in all media formats and channels now known or later developed, without compensation to you. When you post or otherwise share User Content on or through our Services, you understand that your User Content and any associated information (such as your [username], location or profile photo) will be visible to the public. –FaceApp Terms of Use There are users who will think, “It’s just my face, what’s the big deal?” The problem with that thought
process is it’s NOT just your face. That is just one piece of the puzzle.
SOCIAL ENGINEERING AT ITS FINEST The ability to log into websites, connect to WiFi, and order items online has become so easy. The de facto process by which hackers are stealing personal data these days is through social engineering. Social engineering is a method of gathering personal data from a user while posing as a trusted source or through human interactions. When signing up for FaceApp, you give access to your entire photo library. You can also take pictures within the app for immediate uploading. What does this have to do with social engineering? Make no mistake; FaceApp was
Photo by Unsplash 24 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2019
FaceApp was specifically designed to steal the users information with the intention of exploiting the data to harm U.S. national security. specifically designed to steal the users information with the intention of exploiting the data to harm U.S. national security. Social engineering is all about gathering pieces of the overall puzzle. That puzzle being your whole identity profile and with that access to your vulnerabilities, let alone privacy. FaceApp gives the hacker your face, and likely your name as well because you have to download and launch the app on your personal mobile device. Other pieces of the puzzle come with accounts you sign up for such as to get free Starbucks on your birthday or enter to win that BMW at the mall. While one piece of the puzzle might not get anyone much by itself, when our nations adversaries start gathering multiple pieces of the puzzle, it starts to get scary. With FaceApp’s terms of use indicating they can use your likeness essentially any way they wish, along
with other pieces of your personal puzzle available online, you can see how a hacker could easily imitate you to meet their needs.
SITUATIONAL AWARENESS AND INFOSEC This article is being posted on ClearanceJobs.com and is primarily aimed at individuals who are looking for or currently maintaining a government clearance. It is crucial, as a cleared individual, that we do not participate in any online activity that could be a threat to our standing with the US Government or jeopardize our clearance status. FaceApp’s parent company, Wireless Labs, is a Russian-owned entity. The current state of affairs between our country and Russia being what it is, that should be the first red flag when contemplating downloading FaceApp simply so you can make yourself look
older and share it with your friends. Situational awareness is key, and the elements of Information Security (Infosec) should be taken into consideration. By definition, InfoSec is the practice of protecting information by mitigating information risks. Risk management plays a big role in InfoSec, and we all have a responsibility to mitigate any risks we can and avoid them completely where possible. The more we can reduce the probability of unauthorized disclosure, corruption, or modification of our private data, the better. Unfortunately, the technology we live with and its demand for our private data is ever increasing. As a cybersecurity professional and member of the cleared government space for over 20 years, it is my opinion that we should do all we can to avoid utilizing apps such as FaceApp. The risk far outweighs the fleeting entertainment it may provide. But your vulnerability is your narcissism and the enemy’s creativity. •
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Greg Stuart is the owner and editor of vDestination.com. He's been a VMware vExpert every year since 2011. Greg enjoys spending time with his wife and three kids. He has 20 years of IT experience and currently works as an IT Consultant both in the private and public sector. Greg holds a BS in Information Technology and an MBA degree. He currently resides in Southeast Idaho. You can follow him on Twitter @vDestination, read his blog (vDestination.com), and listen to his podcast (vDestination.com/feed/podcast).
The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2019 25
THE COST OF PERMANENT PATIENTS by Neal Asbury
26 The Counter Terrorist ~ June October/November 2019 2019
The migration of these individuals into the United States costs American taxpayers $346 billion annually.
T
he United States has an estimated more than 11 million immigrants who entered this country illegally. According to the National Research Council, the migration of these individuals into the United States costs American taxpayers $346 billion annually.
Now we are starting to get a feel for the costs being absorbed by one sector—the U.S. healthcare system—to treat this population. And the cost is staggering. The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that the current cost of treating uninsured
Courtsey Photo, U.S. Navy, Drugs in the Caribbean Sea The Counter Terrorist The Counter ~ October/November Terrorist ~ June 2019 27
immigrants who entered this country illegally at all levels of government to be $4.3 billion a year. This cost is primarily at emergency rooms and free clinics; it doesn't take into account the billions being absorbed by in-patient care delivered by hospitals. Who is picking up these costs? Every American taxpayer—not to mention medical facilities and insurance companies who turn around and raise their rates for everyone else. For instance, it may surprise you to learn that immigrants who entered this country illegally, who have not paid one dime into Medicaid, are receiving Medicaid benefits. Kaiser Healthcare News reports: [F]ederal law generally bars
immigrants who enter this country illegally from being covered by Medicaid. But a little-known part of the state-federal health insurance program for the poor has long paid about $2 billion a year for emergency treatment for a group of patients who, according to hospitals, mostly comprise this class of immigrants. A 2007 report by the Journal of the American Medical Association found that in a four-year period, about 99 percent of those who used Emergency Medicaid were determined to be immigrants that entered this country illegally. This only covers emergency room care, but many thousands of patients
28 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2019
in the United States who lack health insurance but who need long-term care wind up lingering in hospitals for many weeks, months, or even years because the current healthcare system doesn't offer workable solutions for them. There is a term for these people, "permanent patients," because they have no relatives, insurance, or an established address where they can go once released. Ashish Jha, associate professor of health policy and management at the Harvard School of Public Health, told NBC: It's completely illogical that hospitals have to spend about $2,000 a day on patients who could be cared for much more cheaply in a skilled nursing or rehabilitation facility. But because the law prohibits hospitals from discharging patients without a plan in place for ongoing care—and because nursing homes and rehabs are not required to take patients without insurance— many hospitals wind up keeping these patients for long periods of time. Many patients are stuck because they have no money or insurance to pay for long-term care. Other patients may have insurance, but their medical needs are too complex for most skilled nursing facilities to accept. Then there are those in limbo at the hospital waiting sometimes for months to qualify for Medicaid. Once they're approved, Medicaid will cover the nursing or rehab facility they need. In a case documented by NBC News, a Polish native, who had
cleaned homes in the Chicago area for 20 years, suffered a stroke while on the job. An ambulance took her to Adventist La Grange Memorial Hospital in Illinois. She stayed at La Grange for two years, costing the hospital $1.4 million. A skilled nursing facility would have been a fraction of the cost, but the hospital was prohibited from transferring her because she couldn't pay for care and had no insurance. Once a patient is in stable condition, the hospital is technically not required to continue care. However, some desperate hospitals have turned to "medical repatriations"—a term used when a hospital deports an injured or sick
immigrant to a different medical facility in their home country without their consent. A report reveals that over the past six years, several organizations have registered over 800 cases of attempted or achieved medical repatriations. This, despite the fact that according to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, hospitals are required to screen and treat all patients for emergency care regardless of their health insurance coverage or immigration status. In one recent case that received extensive press, a Colorado medical facility that had been treating two illegal Mexican immigrants for some time without any compensation or
a timeframe for discharge flew them back to Mexico. We talk about an immigration policy where people can become permanent legal residents, but instead find ourselves dealing with illegal permanent patients. This is a sad little secret in our overall immigration and healthcare discussion that gets little attention and is costing us dearly. •
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Neal Asbury is chief executive of The Legacy Companies in Florida. This article also appeared on the Newsmax Finance website.
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The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2019 29
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TRAINING REVIEW
Solo Officer Response to Active Shooter Threat Course
by Garret Machine
I
am not quick to give credit and not easily impressed, but if I can glean even one bit of information from a course, one thing from a class, I will say it was a good class. You can learn something from everyone. A good teacher is also a good student. I try to take classes as often as I can, almost all of them offered through various law enforcement resources. Recently I took a class I had wanted to take ever since I heard about it. I was one of about 200 people in the state to get this opportunity for the pilot program. Hundreds applied, and I was one of the first 140 selected. I knew every other officer in the class; it was offered by the government for LEO only. There were 22 students and 5 instructors, all who did a fantastic job. I teach a course called Active shooter intervention, and I have been teaching that curriculum for about nine years, a course curriculum developed for the armed citizen with an existing LEcentric version. The curriculum content and strategies are based mostly on the Israeli model, with influences from various sources such as FLETC and the collective experience of top-tier SOF personnel. The current product adheres to industry standard best practices. Like everything, adapt or die. The class I took was a response to the Orlando Florida Pulse nightclub shooting and finally put into motion because of the funding of active shooter
response training following the Parkland school shooting. This was an LE trainthe-trainer course specifically for solo response to an active shooter. It was about standardizing doctrine, mindset, and tactics and how to build realistic scenarios for stress inoculation, all of which was a change from previous approaches U.S. law enforcement was taking. Day one started with a brief talk about why it took so long to make a standard SOP for intervention, and where and how they compiled all the data to create what will be the standard. Interesting is that all agencies are left to their own devices to determine what is SOP and best for public safety. There are standards for driving, first aid, and defensive tactics, but not active shooter threat response. While combat is an implied duty, it is actually a collateral skill set and second to the administrative function the public assumes is the collateral function. You will be good at what is valued by the leadership because that is where funds and time will be allocated. No mandate means no standard, which means mediocrity will prevail. It took until now for this to come to the forefront, and many had to die. In the end, the tactics employed seem to have circled back to what some would refer to as basic infantry tactics: Close with and destroy the enemy. This too was a chance for me to be tested in their scenarios.
32 The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2019
Here are some takeaways: • Doctrine is now finally becoming standardized throughout all major agencies and authorities having jurisdiction. • The standard best practice is directto-threat stimulus. When the stimulus source is not obvious, you need to search and gather intel in real time from the crowd. • Keep moving, speed is your friend, tunnel vision and sensory overload are the enemy. • When you encounter a threat, aggress on him with 100% commitment and make sure he is dead. • After he is obviously dead, do the following: Keep weapon up and in the fight, move to a tactical position, be ready for a second wave, self-check medical sweep, comms. • No crowd control concern at this stage and medical is only for you and your team. • Many trainings advocate scanning to your rear before you reholster by looking over your shoulder. I first learned that at FLETC. This system does not advocate that practice, nor would I. The class advocated keeping the gun out, moving to a tactical position, and turning around completely with the weapon for all checks. They even had us do this live fire. This makes much more sense than simply looking over your shoulder, and it follows what I learned years ago
overseas. At the very least, get your ass to a wall. • The Sul position is not a thing in solo officer response while moving/ agressing, use the deep tuck position with the weapon oriented in the intended direction of travel, and the trigger finger is the only safety factor you need concern yourself. The Sul position is used for identifying yourself as a non-threat to fellow good guys. • If you have done any of my classes, this should all be music to your ears. Day two: The whole class was scenario based with
40 role players and the entire building shut down on college campus for scenarios. Low light, blaring sound from speakers, blank-firing AR for sound percussion. Sims and six scenarios per officer, with each video taped by fellow students/instructors and immediately critiqued by the instructor staff. I was very proud, as I was used as an example to other officers for my decisive aggression, threat neutralization, and overall situation control. Every officer there was a fellow firearms instructor, and 90% of them are from the various municipalities/
agencies within Miami county and I have worked with them regularly. It was nice to be recognized among my peers. Outstanding curriculum, great instructors, directly in line with what we are already doing. If your law enforcement agency is interested in such training please, reach out to me. Bottom line is run-hide-fight is for Europe, not us. In America, we identifyengage-neutralize. •
SSG Brad Staggs [Public domain] The Counter Terrorist ~ October/November 2019 33
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